Wednesday, 28 February 2007

Food pix

After requesting your food photos please find a table and wait for your server. We photograph all our food fresh in our kitchens, which may take time. We hope you enjoy the wait.

Or in other words: I'm sorry it's been weeks since nice folk like Frances asked to see the tofu stir-fry. Here it is, made by Alison B:

It was delicious. Here's a brisket sandwich we enjoyed on our snow day in... er... somewhere near burlington:To think we criticised it because the 'sandwich' was actually an uninspiring bun! As you will have seen in my last post, that bun would have had a special place in my heart at lunchtime yesterday.

In contrast with such workaday sustenance, here is the sophisticated NYC smoked-duck salad I snaffled when Paige, Alex and I were obliged to find refreshment in a rather pretentious neighbourhood after the hangman play, when we would have quite liked a plate of fries and a nice cold beer:

And finally, before your connection gives out on you, i hope it can cope with a crafty close-up on that pancake brunch David & Mindy treated me to in New Jersey:

It's definitely not a muffin. Not even what our American cousins call an English muffin. It's a bun or - at a push and in the north - a bap. Why, what is it in the States?

Which reminds me, i was surprised to find a scone for my dad in Starbucks today. I thought he was going to have to have a (American) muffin.

I was also surprised that the drinking straw wrappers were printed not with the words 'drinking straw' but with the warning 'not recommended for hot beverages'. But everyone else probably knows that by now because unlike me, the rest of the Left is not boycotting Starbucks. Why not? 'Because the coffee's soooo good.'

Bun or not a bun would not be the question in an authentic bar-B-Q place, not in the South where bar-B-Q rules, because you would NEVER serve brisket on any kind of bread. If it's not good enough to stand alone, without even sauce (sauce comes on the side), then "you don't have no bizness sellin' it". Chopped beef, which is not brisket, or pulled pork can be served on thick homemade buns, and there are regional rules about what else can go on it (like pickle relish, sauces of various kinds, or even potato salad). But brisket, links and chops should stand alone. Further, the bark (that chewy, dark bit at the edges) on this brisket was far too thin. Good bark is thick but not tough or dry, the best part of the slice. And you serve it with crackers, slices of white bread, maybe potato salad in "fancypants" places, and peppers all on a tear of butcher paper, no plates, sitting at a big grease-stained communal table. With either a Big Red for the kiddos or bottle of beer (which, unfortunately in the U.S. will conjure that old Monty Python joke, "Why is American beer like having intercourse in a canoe? -- Fucking close to water.")

Texas barbecue, which is of course the best in the country, is a blend of original barbecue which probably came from the Cherokees, mingled with African cooking styles, and overlaid with early German immigrants' recipes. Our Longhorn cattle were tough and lean, so the meat had to be cooked slowly, hours over a mequite fire, to make it fallin' apart tender and flavorful.